


Devil's Backbone

by Schattenfeuer



Series: Colors [4]
Category: Nightmare Harem (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Other, Reader-Insert, genderneutral reader
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:08:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26439226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schattenfeuer/pseuds/Schattenfeuer
Summary: The reasons for your doing would forever remain your own, you didn't share them and now it was too late.
Relationships: Mikael/reader
Series: Colors [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1881214
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Devil's Backbone

“Why?”, if you didn’t know it better, you could have sworn he was about to crack up and cry. You didn’t move, kept your head bowed and swallowed the wince as the hands holding you down dug in deeper into your bruised and beaten flesh. From where you were kneeling on the cold marble floor, his shadow almost entirely swallowed you up, you were the one caught red handed, the broken bones in your hand proved that, the thin stream of ruby red dripping down his side a bright exclamation mark. “Tell me why!”

Next to you, bodies started to already cool, blurry shapes of black in the trickery of the night, dark upon dark, melting into one lightless void, devoid of life, even he, as he stood in the spotlight of the moon’s quicksilver rays falling through the window, looked lifeless. A dead man walking, breathing, if not for the raging blaze in his eyes. Your lips curled into a half dead smile, you were so proud of him. But pride and affection couldn’t be more misplaced, for this situation you found yourself in. 

“You are human!”, he wailed, cracks of confusion and denial spreading all over the alabaster front of his perfect mask, he was not hollow anymore and he had trusted you. You had cherished it, taken advantage of it, waited and watched. A spur of the moment, a long crafted plan, it mattered little. What drove you to do what you had done, those reasons were yours and yours alone. He noticed your smile despite your face turned downwards, he balled his fists, the hum of magic loud and clear in your ears, filling your head with static and white noise. “Why did you do this?!”

He stepped forwards, towards your kneeling shape and something clattered in the dark, flashed for a moment before it was swiftly kicked out of your reach again, not that you ever moved even a muscle to try and take it back, the dagger whose sharpened tip was stained crimson with Mikael’s blood. You were hurting, your skin scattered with the dark purple flashes of bruises forming, there was the stale aftertaste of copper and salt on your tongue when you licked your split lip. Despite the confusion, they had acted quick, never had you seen Noel and Cara seen in such perfect unisono, taking you down within moments. The only reason why you were still breathing being him, as he loomed over you. Silver and white and daped in crimson, judge and jury and executioner.

Looking up, you met his frantic gaze, calm and serene even, wondering faintly how many hail mary’s you’d have to mutter for your soul to be free of the stain from your latest action. Too many, no doubt, not that it mattered, you were no fool, knew that you were on the knife’s edge, seconds away from being cut deep and lethal. He searched within your eyes for answers. Searched it in the relaxed arch of your brows and the half smile curving your lips, in your pose, neither slumped over nor ramrod straight. You were neither guilty nor innocent, not good nor bad, you were an enigma. 

“Have you found what you’re looking for?”, you asked, voice soft and low, if anything amused. The spot of red on his side was glowing, slowly but steadily, your knife had caught on, had plunged deep but not deep enough. The wound would hurt but it would heal, you weren’t sure about the mark you’d left on his heart however. “Don’t torture yourself with something that was never your fault.”

“Were you forced? Who? What is it that they are holding over you?”, latching onto your words, he searched for ways out for you, even if you made no move to accept them or use them, you didn’t apologize nor were you weighed down by guilt. Yet when he reached out for you, all it took was a slow movement from you, not a flinch or anything that indicated fear, all you did was tilt your head away from his hand and he staggered as if you had stabbed him yet again. “Why…”

“What’s done is done.”, you were pulled to your feet, stumbling and numb from kneeling on the cold floor for so long, you were grateful and angry in equal measures for this moment to be broken. Off you were dragged, you didn’t need to turn your gaze back over your shoulder to know what you would see, him, bathed in moonlight and stained with blood, confused and hurt with Noel at his side like a silent shadow. When they had talked about having a dungeon underneath the castle, you had mistaken it for a crude joke. It wasn’t the moment shackles were wrapped around your wrists, the chain just long enough to never reach the door. 

In the silence you were left behind to stir in your own thoughts, a silent, violentless way of torture, meant to crack those that were already breaking, to unravel those that were loose already, to make you insane with guilt. But you were neither, the silence was welcomed as you sat in the middle of the cell, hands resting calmly on your lap and your eyes closed, in meditation, relaxation, you were at peace. The coldness of chains slowly became little more than a weight tugging at your wrists, now warmed by your own skin as you listened to the tuneless song of your own heartbeat, badump, badump, badump echoing in your ears, each single one a treasure for their amount was no longer infinite. 

Night turned to day and back to night, you barely noticed it. The throbbing of your broken hand dulled, became little more than an instrument accompanying the drumming of your heart and the ocean like rush of your blood in your ears. They gave you food, but you did not touch it. They gave you water, but you barely swallowed the first few drops falling on your cracked lips. When dawn spread once more, you were already slipping out of your body, leaving it behind like an old piece of clothing, no longer useful and about to be tossed into the trash with the rest. The echo of the door bolt snapping back coaxed your floating mind slowly back into your body, pain and hunger and thirst became more pronounced only to be overpowered by curiosity. 

Opening your eyes, you hadn’t expected him to stand before you the way he did, patched up and pristine again, a glorious sight in white and silver. Your gaze slowly wandered up his form, took notice of the tenseness of his muscles, of the subtle shaking of his balled fists, the way he clenched his teeth. But his eyes were cold again, so cold. A slow breath left your mouth, a tired sigh as ice crept over your skin and seeped into your chest to coat your bones in a glittering sheen. 

“What was your plan? What was your end goal?”, he demanded to know, pushing as always. And so proud, even if it was a hollow, broken kind of pride, you could see through the jagged gaps in his armor and see just how vulnerable he still was around you, trust, even broken one, was hard to shake off, especially when you were in such a helpless position, bound and sitting whereas he was standing, free. “You lied to get close to me. Why?”

“Ah, but did I really lie?”, your voice was merely a whisper, yet when you talked, he listened, lips pressed tightly against each other, face set in a focused frown. Looking up, you should have felt intimidated. Instead you felt sad. “Maybe I did. Maybe not. Only one way to find out, don’t you think?”

“Whatever nonsense are you babbling on about?”, woken by your airy words, his anger reared its head, he was snarling at you and the ice in his eyes replaced by slowly igniting embers. You took a deep breath and laughed, a coarse and hoarse sound, nails over a chalkboard, ending in a cough and yet, the proud Lord of angels was crouching beside you, holding a cup of water to your lips when you made no move to reach for it on your own. Old habits die hard, love was still there, had dug its roots deep into his heart, his mind and body, just as you had left a permanent mark upon him. 

“Find out for yourself, Mikael.”, you licked your lips, tasted blood and stale water and dust and suddenly him, as his hands cupped your bruised cheek, curled in your messy hair to keep you still. He was intoxicating and easy to accept, you didn’t even thought about what you did as you allowed your lips to part, the whimper clawing its way up one’s throat echoed in your ears, was it yours or his, you did not know. “Have you found your answer yet?”

You asked him when he gave free your lips, eyes glazed over by too many emotions to recount and as the words left your mouth, you were pushed backwards, back colliding with the stone floor, you winced as broken fingers tangled in heavy fabric and finally interlaced with his cool fingers, pain a welcome distraction from the way he pressed down upon your beaten form. He held onto you in a dichotomy of gentleness and roughness, you felt his mouth against the soft spot underneath your ear, a hint of teeth, a touch of despair that sent your spine arching and your eyes to close. 

“No. I have to know”, his voice was hard and cold, his words domineering and pushy but the look in his eyes was not as he rested on his forearms, body aline with yours, chest to chest, hip to hip, you were so close yet so far apart. “Why?”

“Find your own answer, Mikael.”, you repeated calmly, squeezed his fingers interlaced with yours despite the pain, despite the dirt and old blood clinging to your skin. Not long now and the stain of you would be washed off of him. But what you had done would forever stay with him and in a way you would be immortalized, for as long as he was drawing a breath, so would you. Dissatisfied with what you had to give, he pushed on, blurred the line between pleasure and pain just as you had done it to him so many times before. It was a shame, the perfect, pristine lord of angels with a dirty, bloodied human, the same one that had stabbed him when his back was turned, yet here he was, with you. In the dingy semi darkness of the dungeon, he pressed down on you, clothes torn and pushed out of the way, he tried to drag an answer to this mess out of you by using his own love against you. 

And you were no better, you took what he had to give, twisted and then returned it with just as much care and affection as before. But no matter how hard he tried, how desperate he pressed and pulled against you, even when you melted into one, chests heaving and foreheads touching, you never cracked, 

Even when he involuntarily bared his whole being to you all over again, you cradled and protected him, by instinct and by love, you accepted him in his fullest, flaws and mistakes and all, but in a last, cruel twist of fate, your mouth remained closed. Even when he left, body flushed and marked all over again, his mind still foggy from pleasure and despair, you remained silent. Only in the heavy silence of your last hours, you allowed a selected few of tears to escape, but they were long dry and gone when they came for you. 

Dragged out into the light, they declared your crimes to the gathered crowd, as you greedily sucked in the last mouthful of fresh air, your gaze wandering from one blurry face to the next, searching, searching until you met his gaze, hollow and desperate, yet upright he stood, on his command the deed was fulfilled, the rope pulled taunt, the gun clocked, the sword raised. 

And with the light in your eyes, the answer vanished.


End file.
